Getting banned from SL?

I see in the police blotter that people are suspended for a some number of days. Does anyone ever get banned from SL?

Yes, on occasion.

I don't think they ever say when someone is banned on the police blotter.

coco

When some one gets 14 days in the corn field they are being reviewed for ban.

There have been a few notorious griefers who were permabanned and two come to my mind. One was permabanned for terraforming many island sims without permission sometime in 2004, and the other for being a very bad boy member of the moonflower family... and lets not forget the grid crashing griefer who was ousted not long ago...OI!!

There was one really nasty griefer that almost got permabanned, but the Lindens had mercy and imposed a permanent forum ban instead (itself not very common). So yeah, they're pretty squeamish at times in pushing the final button.

Permanent bans do not do anything to keep anyone clever out of Second Life.

What surprized me is why they keep coming back? I mean OMG there is a rl outside here you know. Coming back to abuse people really shows you the state of the world these days.

I believe the moron who trashed the ENTIRE GRID last October was perma-banned. He was apparently a well-known griefer whom they'd slapped down before.

Coddling griefers and troublemakers just doesn't work -- one thing I learned at an early age in RL, you cannot allow the bullies to get away with _ANYTHING_... you have to beat them to a bloody pulp to get it through their thick skulls that their BS will NOT be tolerated. The SL equivalent would be insta-banning, not the 3-day suspensions, which are effectively a slap on the wrist.

Yeah, but the thing is, in real life the bullies aren't paying you money and bullying not you, but other people, who also pay you money but are very unlikely to stop paying you money. Ban somebody and they can't pay you.

While that is true, it's sort of like having a RL business & letting your customers torch the place when they feel like it.

it is not very common yes, but who know, maybe one day LL will need to "finish" the ban?

All it takes is a new computer for most to come back. Be careful though, cause not all who make stupid mistakes are evil or malicious

Second life bans based on a Mac Address, which can be changed with a new network driver, ethernet adapter, or just some registry know-how.

LL is a business run on the internet -- as such, it has a Terms of Service contract which all residents agree to when they initiate their accounts. If they don't ban someone who is a griefer, they risk losing more than just one account, but the accounts of many people who are friends of the people being harassed or inconvenienced.

LL has very definitely perma-banned a number of griefers -- whether you believe it or not is irrelevant. They terminate paying customers for bad behavior just like any other responsible internet provider. AOL terminates accounts by the thousands; so does Hotmail, so does Earthlink, so does msn.net, and any other internet provider you can think of.

Most of these don't unless they are doing their customers a favor (AOL) or the customer is question is performing illegal activities. Linden Lab bans after three strikes, regardless of what the strikes are. It could be as simple as cursing three times in a PG sim. I know of someone who was banned for building an M rated object in an M sim completely out of sight and hidden from any PG sim. It was his first offense as well.

Just for further info... this is not really true.

The MAC address checking they do is a little more sophisticated than that. As far as I am aware you have to physically change the motherboard, i.e. - new or different computer/router. Additionally they tag IP addresses, so if you use your old computer to grief, hoping to just switch to your new one when you get banned, you might find yourself looking for a new apartment as well.

Also, there are a lot more people banned than just the "famous" ones you hear about. People are banned for repeated minor offenses as well, so it pays to report every little attack that some jerk is making.

I have had the privilege of voting some of them off myself, and it feels so good!

Does this apply to spelling bullies too?

Yes they do. More often than not for crashing the grid or some direct attack on SL, but, on occaision they will ban memebers who don't quite violate the tos but who are unpopular.